Capital Shield - Concept of Operation Exercise CS14 will be comprised of multiple FTX and CPX events both linked and de-linked through a scenario which will be designed to focus on testing JFHQ-NCR/MDW subordinate units, MDW Installations, and Component Services as a JTF on OPLAN 3600 requirements of CBRN response, Tech Rescue operations, Mass Casualty treatment, stabilization, evacuation and DSCA.

Purpose Validate JFHQ-NCR/MDW, Service Components, National Guard, JTF CAPMED, and Interagency Partners consequence management operation through a FTX and CPX focusing on Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) scenarios.

End State JFHQ-NCR/MDW is prepared to conduct Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) and BSI operations.

http://mdwhome.mdw.army.mil/capital-shield

WASHINGTON (Sept. 24, 2014) -- Seeing emergency vehicles and first responders in action unfortunately are not new to the residents of the National Capital Region, but beginning Sept. 30 thru Oct. 3, those images will not be a sign that something has gone terribly wrong, but that various government agencies are preparing for the next such incident if it occurs.

Capital Shield 2014 is a joint training exercise in the National Capital Region, or NCR, that runs from Sept. 30 thru Oct. 3, and is hosted by the Joint Force Headquarters - National Capital Region. It brings federal, state, local and municipal agencies together to realistically test interagency operability during a crisis impacting the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland.

It also trains and prepares the Department of Defense to provide defense support to civil authorities and employ appropriate force protection measures as requested.

More than 38 participating agencies from DOD and capital region response agencies will perform mock mass casualty rescues, Defense Support to civil agency technical rescues and law enforcement tactical responses. The goal of the exercise is to ensure government agencies at every level are prepared to coordinate action to protect the public in the event of an actual disaster in the National Capital Region.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a deadline to avert a federal government shutdown fast approaching, the U.S. Capitol was eerily quiet on Sunday as Republicans and Democrats waited for the other side to blink first and break the impasse over funding.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives early on Sunday passed a measure that ties government funding to a one-year delay of President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare restructuring law. Senate Democrats have vowed to quash it.

If a stop-gap spending bill for the new fiscal year is not passed before midnight on Monday, government agencies and programs deemed non-essential will begin closing their doors for the first time in 17 years.

In a sign that lawmakers increasingly view that as inevitable, the House unanimously approved a bill to ensure that U.S. soldiers would be paid no matter what happened.,,,

Shortly before New York City Opera put on what will most likely be its final performance on Saturday night, Julius Rudel, the maestro who helped build and lead the company in its heyday, sat in his Manhattan apartment and, surrounded by mementos from the troupe’s glory days, expressed his dismay at its probable impending demise.“I would not have thought in my wildest dreams,” said Mr. Rudel, 92, “that I would outlive the opera company.”(,,,)“I think it’s a real operatic tragedy,” said Mr. Rudel, who led City Opera for 22 eventful years, presenting daring new works and crowd-pleasing productions and conducting treasured performances with singers like Beverly Sills and, on the company’s first night at its new home in Lincoln Center in 1966, a young Plácido Domingo.

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October 1, 2013New York City Opera Announces It Will CloseThe 70-year-old company — which made opera affordable to New Yorkers, championed new work and fostered the careers of major singers — announced on Tuesday that it would dissolve and file for bankruptcy after an urgent fund-raising appeal fell short.“New York City Opera did not achieve the goal of its emergency appeal, and the board and management will begin the necessary financial and operational steps to wind down the company, including initiating the Chapter 11 process,” George Steel, the company’s general manager and artistic director, said in an e-mail to subscribers.Earlier in September, City Opera had announced that it would need to raise $7 million by the end of the month to pay for the rest of its season. The drive fell short,,,The company, which has struggled to attract donations since it moved out of Lincoln Center in 2011 to save money, only managed to raise about $2 million of its $7 million goal, an official said.,,,

After 70 years, New York City Opera has folded, and people are furious about it — not just the choristers, orchestra players and other dedicated company personnel, but countless fans who have depended upon the “people’s opera” for decades.The demise seems to have come so quickly. George Steel, City Opera’s general manager and artistic director since 2009, is inevitably seen as the man who brought down the company, especially through his decision in 2011 to abandon its Lincoln Center home and turn the troupe into a nomadic company presenting productions on various stages in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

---------New York City Opera Files for BankruptcyPublished: October 3, 2013New York City Opera, which was founded 70 years ago to help bring opera to the masses, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday ,,,

---------In the end, it was an odd twist of fate that the company founded by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia to make opera affordable and accessible to New Yorkers should close its doors when the current occupant of City Hall, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is both a billionaire and a major patron of the arts. But as the troupe headed toward bankruptcy, Mr. Bloomberg made it clear that neither his foundation nor the city would step in to save it, telling reporters that its “business model doesn’t seem to be working.”

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Things went downhill swiftly after a series of fateful choices: the 2007 decision, led by the chairwoman, Susan Baker, to hire Gerard Mortier, the European opera impresario, who left before he even really started as general manager and artistic director when it became clear that the $60 million budget he had been promised was a fantasy; the agreement to halt productions in 2009 while the Koch Theater was renovated, which ticket sales never recovered from; and the move to use its endowment to make ends meet, which drove its annual investment income down to about $160,000 from more than $2 million.

After the Mortier debacle, the company turned to Mr. Steel, who had made his name as the executive director of the Miller Theater at Columbia University but had little experience running a major opera company. As he took the reins of the scaled-back City Opera, he found it challenging to raise money from some of the same donors who had just made contributions to support Mr Mortier’s grand visions. ,,, In the end, the bankruptcy vote was unanimous, board members said. MrSteel, who stood to lose his job, abstained.Some board members — including Martin Oppenheimer, a longtime trustee — suggested that bankruptcy might let City Opera merge with another organization or find some other way to survive. “I’m still hopeful that something will happen,” Mr. Oppenheimer said. “I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful.”

Martin J. Oppenheimer is a former Chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department, with a national reputation for representing employers in labor relations matters.

As spokesman in labor negotiations, attorney in arbitration and administrative proceedings, and counselor on all aspects of personnel and labor problems, he has represented, among his commercial clients, Time Warner, United Parcel Service, Amerada Hess, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and many of the leading United States shipping companies.

Martin has acted as counsel to many national and regional Taft-Hartley pension and benefit plans.

In addition to his work in the industrial and commercial sectors, Martin has represented a wide range of not-for-profit organizations, including Columbia University, Yale University, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera.

Martin is actively engaged in the New York City philanthropic community. He served as Chair of the Board of City Center of Music and Drama, Inc., is a Director Emeritus of the Board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and a member of the boards of the 92nd Street YMHA, New York City Opera, The Emelin Theatre, and New York Road Runners, as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia.

Mr. Oppenheimer is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Yale Law School and was a Fulbright Scholar at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

,,,Things went downhill swiftly after a series of fateful choices: the 2007 decision, led by the chairwoman, Susan Baker, to hire Gerard Mortier, the European opera impresario, who left before he even really started as general manager and artistic director when it became clear that the $60 million budget he had been promised was a fantasy,,,,

A Conspiracy to Hide the Truth: Why the True U.S. Government Debt is $205 TrillionNovember 9, 2013

Source: EPJ

Dr Laurence Kotlikoff , professor of economics at Boston University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, was recently interviewed by the Financial Sense Newshour about the true state of fiscal affairs in this country. He explains how the government uses accounting tricks to hide the truth and keep everyone in the dark about the US's actual debt-load, which runs $205 trillion versus the $17 trillion you often here in the news.Kotlikoff also details the ongoing pattern of obfuscation, censorships, and firings of government personnel attempting to disclose budgets of prior Presidents when doing so is deemed politically inconvenient. This is a must-listen interview. Here we present a few key excerpts:Jim Puplava: Professor, officially we’re in debt over $17 trillion but underneath it there’s a bigger problem. I wonder if you might explain to our listeners what that bigger problem is?Professor Kotlikoff: The liabilities the government owes are mostly off the books. We have a true debt picture which is about $205 trillion. This is recording all the future obligations the government has, whether they are official obligations or not, such as paying for your social security benefits, mine, or your mother’s Medicare benefits, defense spending, etc. All of these things are really obligations that aren’t recorded on the books as debt, whereas paying off future principal and interest payments on Treasury bills and bonds are recorded. So, anyway, if you take the value of all of those commitments and subtract all the taxes coming to pay those commitments, the difference is what’s called the fiscal gap; and that fiscal gap in the U.S. is now $205 trillion. So, the true debt is $205 trillion; the official debt is only $17 trillion. So, most of the problems we’re facing, most of the debt we have, the vast majority of it is off the books and Congress has done bookkeeping to make sure the public doesn’t see it. So, when we have these big fights over the debt ceiling, it’s really laughable because at the same time we may not be expanding our official debt at a very rapid rate, we are expanding our unofficial debt or off-the-book debt, unrecorded debt, at a very high rate.